"IBM researchers declare victory over PC eyestrain"
By Eric Auchard
NEW YORK, Sept. 10 (Reuters) - Computer users, rest your
weary eyes on this.
Scientists at IBM Research said Thursday that they
have developed a new flat-panel computer display that allows
users to see text and images with 200 pixels-per-inch clarity
that is virtually indistinguishable from the printed page.
The prototype display, code-named Roentgen, after the
inventor of the X-ray machine, has four times the pixels, or
picture elements, in the same space as common cathode-ray tube
desktop monitors, which display 80 and 100 pixels-per-inch.
Roentgen displays rely on new active-matrix liquid crystal
technology to produce razor-sharp color images that, from a
normal viewing distance of 16 inches or more, eliminate for the
human eye the fuzziness associated with electronic displays.
"We are right at the point at which human vision ceases to
notice any distortion," Robert Wisnieff, leader of the research
team, said of the 200 pixels-per-inch displays.
Office equipment using such displays will significantly
reduce, if not eliminate, eyestrain, he said.
"There's a good experimental correlation between (computer
screen) legibility and lower eyestrain," Wisnieff, manager of the
advanced display technology laboratory at IBM Research in
Yorktown Heights, N.Y., said in an interview.
Experts believe computer eyestrain is linked to the effort
the human eye must make to fill in gaps that exist between the
small light elements of computerized displays, which represent
only a fraction of the elements of a real world image.
The displays initially are aimed at high-end niche uses
like aircraft design, medical imaging, legal record scanning and
digital art libraries, but eventually should find their way into
International Business Machines Corp. desktop and notebook
computers, Wisnieff said.
Early Roentgen displays will cost in excess of $5,000, or
several times the $1,500 to $2,000 price of IBM's most expensive
cathode-ray monitors, but prices will fall as demand picks up and
mass manufacturing economics take hold, he said.
"Ultra-high resolution displays have the potential to
greatly increase the usability ... of digital images, including
... architectural and electronic blueprints, historical archives
and scanned records such as those stored by hospitals or
insurance companies.
"We also expect the degree of clarity and crispness offered
by the Roentgen prototype to be in high demand for graphic design
and electronic publishing applications," Wisnieff said.
The first Roentgen products should be in customer hands
later this year, starting with medical imaging systems, he
said.
Besides offering 200 pixels-per-inch, the new displays
offer full color depth and gray-scale shading on a 16.3 inch
diagonal viewing area of 2,560 by 2,048 pixels, or 5.2 million
full-color pixels in all. Each screen uses 15.7 million
transistors and 1.64 miles of thin film aluminum alloy wiring.
Fellow IBM researcher Kevin Warren said his group has
devised a graphics adapter system, using standard,
off-the-shelf components, capable of processing the more than one
billion bits of graphics data per second that such screens
demand. This allows the displays to be connected to widely
available high-performance personal computers running Windows
operating system, he said.
Work on the Roentgen displays, which began 18 months ago, is
the latest outgrowth of research begun in the mid-1980s by IBM on
active matrix displays. It builds on a 150 pixel-per-inch monitor
under development since 1995 known as "Monet," so-called due to
its capacity to depict fine line brushstrokes of a painting.
Monet technology is now used in IBM's state-of-the-art
ThinkPad 770 notebook model.
The latest development represents more a triumph of
manufacturing improvements than design breakthrough,
researchers said, and is the product of close work with IBM's
ThinkPad display factory in Japan.
"We had to think in advance how far we could stretch the
design by working with our factory counterparts in Japan," which
allowed IBM to build scores of prototypes on a standard
manufacturing line instead of one-of-a-kind models in a lab,
Wisnieff said.
The researchers contrasted the work, which uses existing
materials and display manufacturing equipment, with efforts by
competitors to develop new imaging materials known as
polymorphous silicon. Such technology is unproven and more
costly, since it will require these companies to switch over
their plants to new equipment.
Major rivals in the field include Asian electronics makers
NEC Corp. <6701.T>, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. <64050.KS>,
Toshiba Corp. <6502.T>. Also, a unit of U.S.-based Xerox Corp.
currently offers at 142 pixel-per-inch screen.
-- Eric Auchard, New York newsdesk, 212-859-1840 |
